The single biggest challenge I faced when I still worked in academia was writing papers-shmapers, or to be more precise, the so-called writer's block. The most extreme example is the writer's block I felt against my PhD dissertation. The actual process of writing it took me only about half a year, but I had to spend about ten (!) years to start writing it.
So when I decided to leave academia, I thought - naively in restrospect - that I would finally be freed from this mental challenge. When I started blogging on various aspects of my new occupation - Jewish life coaching- and its foundation - teachings of Chabad Hasidism - about two and a half years ago, I felt as if I had become a writing tool of something bigger than myself. Words simply came out of nowhere, and all I had to do was to write down these flowing words.
But quite unexpectedly, I started to experience non-academic writer's block when I started to work with a personal business coach and write writing assignments, which I can apply immediately to my new business. This new challenge became blown out of proportion. I spent three full work days sitting in front of my computer and not writing even a single word. So I've understood that my writer's block has nothing to do with academia.
I tried one trick that usually worked to cope with this challenge when I had to finish writing an academic paper - getting up at 3:30 instead of 5:00 in the morning. These extra 90 minutes often turned out to be far more productive than eight hours in the middle of the work day, and I could get more things done in these 90 minutes.
This old trick did work with my new non-academic writer's block, too. But it's the last resort. I can't get up at 3:30 every (weekday) morning. And even if I should, I would then lose the freshness of these extra 9o minutes and they will become just like other normal hours of my work day.
In the meanwhile I haven't come up with other, more realistic, solutions I can use on a regular basis.